Their Youth was More Wrong Than Anyone Expected
by weewah
Summary: The events of Oregairu told through the other characters' points of view reveal a terrible truth... Disclaimer: I do not own Oregairu. The original light novel is written by Watari Wataru.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: This is NOT a happy story like my other ones. It's also somewhat low on humor (unless you like it dark).**

Prologue

Spring. The season of hope and opportunity. A lone high school girl heads towards her new school, wondering if she will do well, wondering if she will make friends. Then, by a twist of fate, she accidentally bumps into a boy, and thus their destinies entwine...

That was the setting of the high school romance novel I had started reading recently. The story did not really appeal to me, with its stereotypical setting and unrealistically happy characters. Nevertheless, since I too was about to begin my high school life, I figured it could at least somewhat serve as a reference. Of course, I did not actually believe that the cliche opening events of the novel would actually occur in real life. Thus I was completely unprepared when they happened almost exactly according to the script.

Almost. Unfortunately, there was a difference in one crucial detail that changed everything. While the novel protagonist was a stereotypical everyday girl from a middle-class family, I was the daughter of a wealthy politician. So unlike the novel protagonist who cheerfully jogged towards her high school while eating the bread in her mouth, I was seated in the back of a black limousine while reading the book in my hand. Thus the cliche "accidental bump of fate" in my case could be more accurately described as a terrible car accident.

* * *

Everything was covered up.

"Yukinoshita Family involved in Car Crash Incident". Perhaps to avoid such scandalous headlines, everyone involved silenced by a mixture of bribes and intimidation. I was no exception.

I was given strict orders to avoid and feign ignorance of the entire situation. The story would be that I was never in the back of that limousine, merely resting at home because I was feeling unwell. Naturally, that meant I was also forbidden to perform any investigation of the incident, so I knew almost nothing about the victim. The only clue I had was the shout of "Somebody save him!" that entered the limousine at the time of the incident, proving that it was an actual person that got hit, not the barking dog, and that the person was male.

While I was not the driver of the limousine, I couldn't deny that if I had just insisted on walking to school, this accident would not have occurred. Or better yet, chosen to study abroad instead. There was no real reason for me to attend high school anyway. All of the academic knowledge I could possibly gain from Sobu High had already been forcefully crammed into my head since I was a child. My enrollment there was nothing more than a political move to suggest that my father strongly cared for the education system. Thus I spent the rest of the school year in a daze, plagued by thoughts that I might have robbed some innocent student of his future.

* * *

In my second year of high school, my behavior caught the attention of the school's guidance counselor Hiratsuka-sensei. Following her suggestion, the service club was established. If I had harmed a high school student, then I should make up for it by helping other high school students resolve their problems. The logic was shaky at best, but since I had no better alternative, I accepted.

The first request of the service club was about a second-year male student with dead fish eyes. Apparently, his corrupted personality was causing problems, so Hiratsuka-sensei dragged him to the service club with a request to reform him. After introducing himself as Hikigaya Hachiman, he proceeded to deny having any problems, despite the large amounts of cynicism and pessimism oozing out from his very being.

The first step to solving a problem is acknowledging its existence. Thus what I had to do seemed simple enough: honestly point out his flaws until he admits them. Considering how much trouble he was getting into because of his personality problems, I figured it would be impossible for him to continue to stay in denial for long. Thus I focused more on the second request.

Unlike Hikigaya, the second request was about a student who was dangerously incompetent in just about everything. Yuigahama Yui was on academic probation, and appeared to have difficulty following even simple instructions. To make matters worse, she had low self-confidence and motivation. After failing just once at a simple task, she had already convinced herself that she had no talent and gave up.

In this case, Hikigaya existence turned out to be somewhat helpful. By revealing how pathetic he was, he convinced Yuigahama that plenty of people were even worse than she was, thus boosting her self-confidence. However, this was not a long-term solution, since her skills did not actually improve. Since she was unlikely to even graduate at this rate, I resolved myself to helping and encouraging her to study, and pushed Hikigaya's issue to the back of my mind.

* * *

Since then, from time to time, I could hear Hikigaya muttering strange things under his breath such as "there are three people here, but I am still alone". Nevertheless, I ignored them since Yuigahama seemed to be in much more desperate need of help.

Then it happened.

On an otherwise normal day, when I headed to the service club room with Yuigahama, we found that a suspicious individual was already inside the room. He was facing out the open window, with his back towards the door where we were standing. While quietly muttering to himself, he waved his arms about dramatically as if he was performing an amateurish imitation of a conductor in front of an orchestra.

Since this unknown intruder who was now emitting a disgustingly creepy laugh could be dangerous, we decided to observe a little longer instead of entering the room. However, it seemed he had noticed us. Without any warning, the air around him suddenly changed to something more familiar, and he immediately ran up to us and asked "What are you doing?"

In shock, Yuigahama screamed, but I had figured out the identity of the intruder. "Hikigaya-kun... you surprised me. Could you not suddenly call out to us like that?"

In response, he gave a short apology and repeated his question.

"There was someone suspicious in the club room," Yuigahama said while staring at Hikigaya with blaming eyes.

"You two are the suspicious ones here."

We were only acting suspiciously because he was acting suspiciously in the service club room! Instead of his normal attire, he was now wearing a long brown coat, fake glasses, and finger-less gloves. While Hikigaya normally performed all actions lethargically according to his "to work is to lose!" motto, earlier he was prancing about energetically as if he was a completely different person. Was he deliberately trying to provoke us by calling us the suspicious ones instead?

"Enough. Just go in and explain this new persona."


	2. The Appearance of Zaimokuza Yoshiteru

The Appearance of Zaimokuza Yoshiteru

When we entered the room, so did a gust of wind through the window Hikigaya had left open. The wind picked up the pile of papers he had carelessly left next to the window, and we were engulfed in a whirlwind of white.

As I shielded my eyes with my arms from any stray pieces of paper, a deep, pompous voice filled the room.

"Ku ku ku, to think we would meet at a place like this, how surprising. I've been waiting for you, Hikigaya Hachiman."

Strange. The voice sounded similar to Hikigaya's voice, and he was the only male in the room. Ergo he must have been the one who spoke, yet the sentence suggested that it was someone else talking to Hikigaya.

When I opened my eyes, Hikigaya was staring at the open window and stuttering a response in surprise: "W-What did you say?!"

From behind Hikigaya, I followed his gaze towards the window. Then I moved my gaze back to him. Then back to the window again. There was no one in his line of sight.

"Hikigaya-kun, who are you talking to?"

Instead of a response, Hikigaya merely began to laugh. While crossing his arms and shrugging his shoulders, he slowly shook his head. Then the deep voice filled the room again. "To think that you would forget your old partner... how detestable, Hachiman."

I looked around the room again. There were still only three of us here, so this time there was no mistake. The deep voice was definitely coming from Hikigaya himself. Just in case, I briefly checked Yuigahama's reaction to confirm that I wasn't hearing things. Understandably, she too was getting unsettled by this development. She was staring at him while repeating his words "old partner?" with a hint of disgust.

Meanwhile, Hikigaya ignored the two of us and proceeded to talk to himself while alternating between his deep voice and his normal voice. From the rare bits of sense within his conversation, it sounded like he was grumbling about something regarding the school's gym classes.

Suddenly, he turned around and faced us. Then he struck a disgusting pose that I refuse to describe while making a proclamation in his deep voice. "Indeed, I am the master fencer general, Zaimokuza Yoshiteru."

I was at a loss for words. What was going on? My brain immediately offered a dozen possibilities, but none of them seemed likely. Based on the current information, my best guess was that he was performing some sort of skit. But why? What was the purpose behind this incomprehensible act? It seems Yuigahama shared my sentiments, because she glared at him and asked, "Hey... what exactly is that supposed to be?"

In response to her words, Hikigaya stared at her quizzically, as if to ask why she was glaring at him. He glanced towards the open window again, but there was no one there, so of course Yuigahama's glare was directed at him. "This guy is Zaimokuza Yoshiteru... we used to be gym partners."

After giving that nonsensical answer that answered nothing, he proceeded to talk to himself again, this time grumbling about something regarding his lack of friends. His confusing act was starting to make my head hurt, so I put a stop to it. "This topic of friends doesn't matter. What do you want?"

After an awkward pause during which Hikigaya's face assumed a variety of expressions, he returned to using his deep voice. "Mwahaha, I completely forgot about it. By the way, Hachiman. This is the service club, is it not?"

It looked like he was going to continue talking to himself again, so I answered him before he could answer himself. "Yes, this is the service club."

He glanced at me briefly, but then proceeded to talk to the window again. "... I-Is that so? So if the advice Hiratsuka-sensei gave me is true, Hachiman, you have a duty to grant my wishes, do you not? To think that after so many hundreds of years you would return once again as my servant… this must be the work of the Hachiman Great Bodhisattva. "

It seemed like he was about to launch into another session of nonsensical drivel, so I interrupted him. "It's not like the service club is here to grant your wishes... we just help you out a bit."

Unfortunately, my interruption failed to prevent it. After mumbling a short "Hm", the session of nonsensical drivel began in full force. This time he was muttering something about conquering the world.

"Uwahh..." It looked like Yuigahama had hit her limit. I had to put an end to this before she got any mental scars.

"Hikigaya-kun, could I speak with you for just a moment...?" I tugged Hikigaya's sleeve to pull his ear closer to my mouth and whispered to him. "What is going on? What is up with this master fencer general whatever?" This had been dragging on far too long to be just some horribly misguided attempt to hit on Yuigahama.

"It's chuunibyou. Just chuunibyou," he responded, now using his normal voice.

Chuunibyou? An unfamiliar word. I instinctively tilted my head and tried to recall whether I had ever encountered that word before. Meanwhile, it seemed the fact that Hikigaya was now using his normal voice again allowed Yuigahama to recover somewhat, as she joined in the conversation. "That some kind of disease?"

Fortunately, it seemed that Hikigaya had returned to normal. So he managed to give a proper explanation about what chuunibyou meant in his normal voice. Unfortunately, the normal Hikigaya was still extremely creepy. As a result, Yuigahama had been so repulsed that she was now standing near the exit of the club room, beckoning me to join her in running away.

However, running away from your problems never solves anything. Furthermore, what worried me was that the description of chuunibyou didn't quite match up to the behavior Hikigaya was displaying. Initially, I had refused to believe this possibility because of its improbability, but all of the signs so far were pointing towards an undeniable conclusion: he was suffering from some sort of dissociative identity disorder.

But why? Before today, there was no signs of this disorder. Mental illnesses aren't like common colds that simply appear without rhyme or reason. There must have been some sort of trigger that caused it to appear. Or maybe he had always suffered from it, and today was just the first time it manifested in front of us.

I needed more information. Earlier, he had referred to the condition he had as chuunibyou, suggesting he was at least somewhat aware of it. "You're here so we can help you cure this sickness, am I correct?" I probed.

I did not receive a response. Instead, Hikigaya averted his gaze and returned to using his deep voice to start a conversation with himself. That was a bad sign.

It wasn't a field that I had much interest in, but from the small amount of information I had read about it, people with mental illnesses could be unstable. They could suddenly attack others without any warning. I had taken plenty of self-defense classes, so I was confident that I could defeat him even if I was attacked, but that only applied if the attacks were directed towards me. If he decided to go for Yuigahama instead, I wasn't so sure that I could intervene in time. With that in mind, I needed to keep his focus on me.

Thus I stepped in between Hikigaya and Yuigahama, and pulled on his collar to make him face me while trying to shut down his delusional fantasy settings. Once I succeeded, I repeated my question.

However, the question was dodged once again. Hikigaya merely redirected the conversation to the pile of papers that had been scattered throughout the room, stating that it was a novel he had written and asking us to review it.

Instinctively, I placed my hand on my forehead once again. Considering the cowardly personality traits he had displayed in both personalities, I concluded that the probability of a sudden attack was negligible. However, the person in question seemed completely unaware of his illness and was deliberately ignoring any information that might cue him in on it.

I searched my memories once more for information and case studies on treating patients with dissociative identity disorder, but found little information to suggest how I should proceed. My standard method of forcing a person to confront his flaws may not be the best idea in this situation. Perhaps I should take him to the hospital? But how would I convince him that... wait where did he go?

I looked around in a panic, regretting that I took my eyes off him. It seems that while I was lost in thought, Hikigaya had escaped from the room, leaving behind me and a very puzzled-looking Yuigahama. "Yukinon... do you know what that was about?"

"No. But we will find out."

* * *

 **Author's Note: The lack of a Hachiman Ballade has left me in despair. So this chapter was released to spread the suffering ;_;. Or dark humor, depending on your tastes.**

 **8man spent the first 16 years of his life being rejected by everyone outside his immediate family. He was even rejected by other loners and otakus... that's almost on the level of a superpower. So I couldn't believe that anyone actually wanted to be Hachiman's friend without a good reason. And thus this story was born.**

 **At first I thought it would have to diverge greatly from canon. I even had to rewrite this scene quite a few times to make it fit (it still seems a bit forced actually). But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how everything else in the story started to fit eerily well if Zaimokuza was imaginary. Especially since Zaimokuza gets ignored by just about everyone, even the actually disappearing Taishi. I'll do a few more chapters to show what I mean.**

 **P.S. Was so tempted to call this whole story "The Disappearance of Zaimokuza Yoshiteru" to make a Haruhi reference, but that would have given away the surprise.**


End file.
